While Bernie Sanders won the battle in West Virginia Tuesday, Hillary Clinton moved 11 delegates closer to clinching the Democratic nomination. She's now 144 away, counting committed superdelegates, from the required 2,383. 

No longer facing any competition, Donald Trump easily won Nebraska and West Virginia, picking up an additional 67 delegates. (Three West Virginia delegates remain outstanding as of this writing). That gives Trump 1,135 delegates, 102 from the required 1,237.

Looking at the number of pledged delegates available in upcoming events, both Clinton and Trump should cross the finish line on June 7th. 

Clinton's path to victory has been made easier by the overwhelming support of party superdelegates. Despite the math, Sanders has vowed to stay in the race "until the last vote is cast". His best hope is to pass Clinton in pledged delegates over the course of the remaining contests and use that to persuade superdelegates to rethink their commitment. Sanders would need to win about 2/3 of the remaining pledged delegates for the first part of this to occur. While not impossible, it would require a pretty dramatic shift in this final month of Democratic voting. That said, the closer Sanders can get, the more influence he and his supporters are likely to have in shaping the platform and program at the Democratic Convention this July.

A new poll from DHM Research, in advance of next Tuesday's Oregon primary, gives Hillary Clinton a 15 point lead over Bernie Sanders, 48-33. On the Republican side, Donald Trump has 45% to 14% for Ted Cruz and John Kasich, both of whom have suspended their campaign.

Both parties have a more-or-less proportional method of delegate allocation in the state. The Democrats have 61 pledged delegates there, Republicans 28.

A Clinton vs. Trump match-up in November was also tested. Here, Clinton bested Trump by 43-32. Although lots of undecided/other in that result, the 11 point margin is similar to Barack Obama's 12 point win over Mitt Romney in 2012. Oregon has not voted Republican in the general election since 1984.

We've updated the Clinton vs. Trump electoral map based on polls for this result. 

Tuesday brings us the West Virginia primary for both parties, while Republicans in Nebraska will also go to the polls. The polling places are open until 7:30 ET in West Virginia. In Nebraska, polls close at 9:00 ET, meaning 8:00 PM locally for those in the Central Time Zone and 7:00 PM for those in the Mountain Time Zone.

Delegate Update

Hillary Clinton starts the day 155 delegates from the 2,383 she needs to clinch the Democratic nomination, while Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee, needs 169 to officially reach the magic number of 1,237 delegates. Neither can reach the required total today with the pledged delegates available.

Democratic Primary:  There are 29 pledged delegates available in the Democratic West Virginia primary. Sanders leads the limited polling by 6 points. As with all Democratic contests, the delegates will be awarded proportionately based partially on the statewide result, partially on the result within each congressional district. Regardless of the outcome today, Clinton is likely to clinch the nomination on June 7th. Six states, including California with 475 pledged delegates, vote that day.

Republican Primaries: 70 delegates are available today. Nebraska has 36 delegates, winner take all. There has been no polling here, but, with no competition, little reason to think anyone other than Trump will win. Trump has a commanding lead in West Virginia. He should win most or all of the state's 34 delegates, depsite the convoluted way they are awarded. June 7th is also the most likely date for Trump to officially seal the nomination.

A new Quinnipiac poll of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania finds a competitive general election battle in those states between Donald Trump and either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

This poll shows a closer race in Florida and Pennsylvania than other recent 2016 election polls; Ohio remains close. This is the first set of polls in these traditional swing states since Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee. Future polls will tell us whether this result indicates a growing acceptance of Trump as Republican standard-bearer. 

Note: The image above has been corrected from an earlier version. The initial version said Clinton - Sanders when it should have been Sanders - Trump.

For those that think a viable alternative to Clinton vs. Trump might emerge in the weeks ahead, here's a new version of the 270toWin interactive map that lets you game out those possibilities. Click or tap the map to get started!

 

Background: Democrats and Republicans have held a monopoly on the electoral map since 1968, when George Wallace won the popular vote in five southern states and amassed 46 electoral votes. While that probably won't change in 2016, the two major parties are on the cusp of nominating historically unpopular candidates as their standard-bearers. This has led to more talk than usual about alternatives.

With Donald Trump becoming the presumptive Republican nominee this past week, much of the current talk is around finding a conservative alternative. Bill Kristol, Editor of The Weekly Standard, has been pushing the Independent Republican idea. He recently met with 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney. (Needless to say, this strategy is not popular with Mr. Trump's supporters).

Given ballot access issues associated with an independent bid, another option mentioned is achieving this via a 3rd party. The Libertarian party is already on the ballot in most states, and is working toward being an option in all 50 states. The party holds its nominating convention Memorial Day weekend in Orlando. In 2012, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson received over 1.2 million votes (about 1% of the national total) as their nominee. Johnson is running for the party's nomination again in 2016. A big hurdle for the Libertarian nominee will be achieving the 15% national polling support needed to qualify for this fall's presidential debates.  

However a Trump alternative emerges, the 'dream scenario' for those seeking that is one where none of the three candidates reaches the required 270 electoral votes. In that case, the election will be thrown into the House of Representatives, with each state delegation getting one vote. Since Republicans control most of these votes, the thinking is the majority will side with the Trump alternative.

That outcome is highly unlikely, as Trump and the 3rd party/independent would mostly be competing for the same subset of voters. This might actually increase the electoral vote count for Hillary Clinton. For it to have a remote shot at working, Clinton would need to be a weak nominee by Election Day and the Trump alternative would need to be someone that could focus on and win a couple blue states without significantly diluting the non-Clinton vote elsewhere. 

The Upshot team at The New York Times has taken a look at the electoral map for a general election match-up between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They see a challenging landscape for the presumptive Republican nominee if he cannot improve his standing in the polls between now and November.

Use the link above to read the article. For those that want to play around with the scenarios in it, we've created interactive versions of the maps. Click or tap any one of them to get started.

Scenario 1: Based on current polling, Clinton wins 347-191. This is the actual 2012 electoral map with North Carolina flipping to the Democrats. 

 

 

Ohio governor John Kasich will suspend his campaign today, the Wall Street Journal reports. Kasich was fourth in delegates, having only won his home state of Ohio, yet his campaign was the last one to yield to Donald Trump.

Kasich's suspension comes on the heels of a similar announcement by Texas Senator Ted Cruz last night. The Republican field, once 17-deep, is now down to just Trump.

Trump will meet Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in November. 

Here's the latest (in some cases only) poll for Clinton vs. Trump in each state. This is limited to polls conducted in 2016. Alongside the result is the party winner of the last four presidential elections. 

Here are these polls presented in a Clinton vs. Trump electoral map (based on polling).

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, reeling after a significant defeat in Indiana, has ended his campaign. Donald Trump is almost definitely going to be the 2016 Republican nominee.

It's admittedly of limited predictive value, but here's the electoral map based on Clinton vs. Trump polls thus far: 

A new Public Policy Polling survey of West Virginia shows Donald Trump with a commanding lead in advance of next Tuesday's Republican primary there. For the Democrats, Bernie Sanders has a single digit lead over Hillary Clinton. This is the first poll of the state since February.

The West Virginia Republican primary awards 34 delegates in what Politico has called "a mind-boggingly compex delegate election process". That said, given Trump's 61% showing in this poll (22% for Cruz, 14% for Kasich) and the increasing likelihood that he's on a path to the nomination, it would be reasonable to expect he'll do well in the delegate count despite the system.

Sanders leads Clinton by 8 points in the Democratic West Virginia primary, 45 to 37. The state awards 29 pledged delegates which, as in other Democratic contests, will be allocated proportionately partially based on the statewide result, partially based on each congressional district.

Looking ahead to November, West Virginia's 5 electoral votes seem safe for the GOP. In the most likely match-up, Trump leads Clinton by 57% to 30%. The only scenario where the poll shows the election would be close is Ted Cruz vs. Bernie Sanders. This is not a surprise, when looking at the state's history. Starting with the Great Depression-era election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, West Virginia was a pretty reliable 'blue state' through 1996, when it voted with Bill Clinton for a 2nd time. Since then, however, the state has voted Republican, with increasing margins in each election. Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama by abput 27 points in 2012.